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Fatwas and their controversy: The case of the Council of Indonesian Ulama (MUI)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2012

Mun'im Sirry
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Abstract

This article discusses a different side of two controversial fatwas — one against Muslims participating in Christmas celebrations and the other against pluralism, liberalism and secularism — issued by the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI, Council of Indonesian Ulama). Most studies on MUI have emphasised the role that the Council's fatwas have played in inciting sectarian violence in Indonesia. Without denying the connections between violence and the MUI fatwas, this article argues that these controversial fatwas have also opened up room for more fruitful and constructive discussions among different religious groups in Indonesia. This article asks: What were the roots of the controversy over these intolerant fatwas? How did the state respond to them? And what does the controversy over these fatwas tell us about the nature of public debate on Islam in Indonesia? By answering these questions this article will shed light on aspects of contemporary Indonesian public debates about Islam that have been overlooked in current scholarship.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 100 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2013

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References

1 See, for example, M. Atho Mudzhar, ‘Fatwas of the Council of Indonesian Ulama: A study of Islamic legal thought in Indonesia, 1975–1988’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1990); ‘The Council of Indonesian Ulama on Muslims' attendance at Christmas celebrations’, in Islamic legal interpretation: Muftis and their fatwas, ed. Masud, Muhammad Khalid, Messick, Brinkley Morris and Powers, David Stephan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 230–41Google Scholar; and ‘The ‘ulama, the government and society in modern Indonesia’, in Islam in the era of globalization: Muslim attitudes towards modernity and identity, ed. Meuleman, Johan H. (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), pp. 315–26Google Scholar.

2 See, for instance, Ichwan, Moch. Nur, ‘Ulama, state and politics: Majelis Ulama Indonesia after Suharto’, Islamic Law and Society, 12, 1 (2005): 45–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gillespie, Piers, ‘Current issues in Indonesian Islam: Analysing the 2005 Council of Indonesian Ulama Fatwa no. 7 opposing pluralism, liberalism and secularism’, Journal of Islamic Studies, 18 (2007): 202–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hosen, Nadirsyah, ‘Fatwa and politics in Indonesia’, in Sharī‘a and politics in modern Indonesia, ed. Salim, Arskal and Azra, Azyumardi (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003), pp. 168–80Google Scholar.

3 Olle, John, ‘The Majelis Ulama Indonesia versus “heresy”: The resurgence of authoritarian Islam’, in State of authority: The state in society in Indonesia, ed. van Klinken, Gerry and Barker, Joshua, pp. 95–116 (Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 2009), p. 101Google Scholar.

4 An excellent treatment of Islamic criticism is Asad, Talal, ‘The limits of religious criticism in the Middle East: Notes on Islamic public arguments’, in his Genealogy of religion: Discipline and reasons of power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), pp. 200–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Asad's insights helped me to frame my own approach to the MUI fatwas.

5 Hooker, M.B., Indonesian Islam: Social change through contemporary fatāwā (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003), p. 60Google Scholar. Speaking at the first national congress of MUI, held on 21–27 July 1975, President Suharto outlined four roles for MUI. It should: serve as the ‘translator of the concepts and activities of national and local development for the people’; be a form of advisory council that ‘gives advice and opinions to the government concerning religious life’; be the ‘mediator between the government and ulama’, and function as a place where the ulama discuss ‘the problems related to the duties of ulama’. See Moch. Nur Ichwan, ‘Ulama, state and politics’, p. 48.

6 Porter, Donald J., Managing politics and Islam in Indonesia (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), p. 76Google Scholar.

7 Ibid.

8 Hooker, Indonesian Islam, p. 60.

9 Mudzhar, Fatwas of the Council of Indonesian Ulama, pp. 255–7. During the period 1975–88, Mudzhar found four major objectives which determined MUI's fatwas, namely: to gain acceptance within society and obtain good relations with Muslim organisations; to maintain good relations with the government; to encourage a higher participation of Muslims in national development; and to maintain harmonious relations with non-Muslim religious groups. In a further study covering the period 1989–2000, Mudzhar notes that ‘The four basic objectives of the MUI found in the previous study have continued to prevail in the period under discussion. The difference lies only in the intensity and manifestation.’ See Mudzhar, ‘The ‘ulama, the government, and society’, pp. 315–26.

10 Ichwan, ‘Ulama, state and politics’, p. 46.

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14 Mudzhar, Fatwas of the Council of Indonesian Ulama, pp. 155–6.

15 Hosen, ‘Behind the scenes’, p. 167.

16 Mujiburrahman, Feeling threatened: Muslim–Christian relations in Indonesia's New Order (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), p. 93Google Scholar.

17 For instance, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) briefly discussed this issue. In his Kitāb Iqtidā, he argues that conscious imitation of Christian festivities, with knowledge that the object of imitation is among the particularities of their faith, is prohibited. If the imitator does not know that the object originated from unbelievers, he should be told of the prohibition. See Memon, Muhammad Umar, Ibn Taymiyya's struggle against popular religion, with an annotated translation of his Kitāb Iqtidā al-ṣirāt al-mustaqīm mukhālafa asḥāb al-jahīm (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1976), pp. 2–3, 218–19Google Scholar.

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19 Alwi , ‘The Muhammadiyah movement’, p. 41.

20 Mudzhar, Fatwas of the Council of Indonesian Ulama, p. 137.

21 Abdurrahman Wahid, ‘Fatwa Natal, ujung dan pangkal’ [The Christmas fatwa, its beginning and end], Tempo, 30 May 1981.

22 Ibid.

23 Saimima, Iqbal Abdurrauf, ‘Ujung pangkal suara Cak Dur’ [The beginning and end of Cak Dur's voice], Panji Masyarakat, 326 (June 1981): 14–15Google Scholar.

24 Abdullah, Samudi, ‘Tentang perayaan Natal bersama’ [On celebrating Christmas gatherings], Panji Masyarakat, 326 (June 1981): 54–5Google Scholar.

25 Bowen, Islam, law and equality in Indonesia, p. 235.

26 Mujiburrahman, Feeling threatened, p. 93.

27 See, ‘Buya, fatwa dan kerukunan beragama’ [Buya, fatwa and religious harmony], Tempo, 30 May 1981.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Mudzhar, Fatwas of the Council of Indonesian Ulama, p. 128.

31 Cited by Mujiburrahman, Feeling threatened, p. 94.

32 See, ‘Buya, fatwa dan kerukunan beragama’.

33 During this congress in July 2005 MUI issued eleven fatwas, some of which were controversial and widely debated in the country, especially the fatwa on pluralism. The other highly debated fatwa declared the Ahmadiyah as a heretical group. For a discussion on MUI's fatwa on Ahmadiyah, see Olle, ‘The Majelis Ulama Indonesia versus “heresy”’.

34 For a discussion on this fatwa, see Gillespie, ‘Current issues in Indonesian Islam’. All translations from Bahasa Indonesia of the fatwa cited here are mine.

35 For an overview of the growth of liberal Islam in Indonesia, see Hidayat, Komaruddin, ‘Contemporary liberal Islam in Indonesia, pluralism and the secular state’, in A portrait of contemporary Indonesian Islam, ed. Bamualim, Chaider S. (Jakarta: Pusat Bahasa dan Budaya Universitas Islam Negeri; Konard-Adenauer-Stiftung, 2005), pp. 53–65Google Scholar.

36 On JIL, see Harvey, Clare Isobel, ‘Muslim intellectualism in Indonesia: The Liberal Islam Network (JIL) controversy’, RIMA: Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, 43, 2 (2009): 13–52Google Scholar; Ali, Muhamad, ‘The rise of the Liberal Islam Network (JIL) in contemporary Indonesia’, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 22, 1 (2005): 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 See Fiqih lintas agama: Membangun masyarakat inklusif-pluralis, ed. Sirry, Mun'im (Jakarta: Yayasan Wakaf Paramadina with the Asia Foundation, 2004)Google Scholar. Some aspects of this book are discussed by Feener, R. Michael, Muslim legal thought in modern Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 189–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Because of the controversy it engendered, the book was later translated into English under the title Interfaith theology (Jakarta: International Centre for Islam and Pluralism [ICIP], 2006)Google Scholar.

39 For a discussion of Nurcholish Madjid's ideas on secularisation, see Sirry, Mun'im, ‘The idea of secularization in the minds of reformist Muslims: A case study of Nurcholish Madjid and Fouad Zakaria’, Journal of Indonesian Islam, 1, 2 (2007): 323–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Hefner, Robert, Civil Islam: Muslims and democratization in Indonesia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 59Google Scholar.

41 Dawam Rahardjo, ‘Kala MUI mengharamkan pluralisme’ [When MUI forbade pluralism], Koran Tempo, 1 Aug. 2005.

42 Ibid.

43 Discussion transcript, Kantor Berita Radio 68H, ‘Menyikapi perbedaan Pasca fatwa MUI’ [Divergent attitudes post-MUI fatwa] 4 Aug. 2005.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

46 See ‘MUI's fatwa encourage use of violence’, Jakarta Post, 1 Aug. 2005.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Magnis-Suseno, Franz SJ, ‘Pluralism under debate: Indonesian perspectives’, in Christianity in Indonesia, ed. Schröter, Susanne (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2010), p. 347Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., p. 352.

51 Ibid., p. 357.

52 See, ‘Fatwa MUI memicu kontroversi’ [MUI fatwa triggers controversy], Kompas, 30 July 2005.

53 See, ‘Fatwa MUI Diminta Dicabut’ [Demanding the retraction of the MUI fatwa], NU Online, 2 Aug. 2005, http://nu.or.id/page/id/dinamic_detil/1/3348/Warta/Fatwa_MUI_Diminta_Dicabut.html (last accessed on 13 May 2011).

54 Anwar, M. Syafi‘i, ‘The clash of religio-political thought: The contest between radical-conservative Islam and progressive-liberal Islam in Post-Soeharto Indonesia’, in The future of secularism, ed. Srinivasab, T.N. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 239Google Scholar.

55 Sjeichul Hadi Permono, ‘Sudah tugas MUI mengeluarkan fatwa’ [It is MUI's duty to issue fatwas], 1 Aug. 2005, http://www.hidayatullah.com/search_hitcom.php (last accessed on 13 May 2011).

56 Ibid.

57 Both titles were published in 2010 by Lembaga Studi Agama dan Filsafat (LSAF) and Paramadina.

58 Munawar-Rachman, Membela kebebasan, p. xli.

59 Husaini, Adian, Islam liberal, pluralisme agama dan diabolisme intelektual (Surabaya: Risalah Gusti, 2005), p. xiiiGoogle Scholar.

60 Ibid., p. 18.

61 Assyaukanie, Luthfi, ‘Fatwa and violence in Indonesia’, Journal of Religion and Society, 11 (2009): 15Google Scholar.

62 One may argue that although the post-New Order government did not intervene directly in the debate on the MUI fatwa on pluralism, liberalism and secularism, the policy and attitude of the Minister of Religious Affairs indicate that the government supports such a fatwa. In fact, the Minister's statement as reported by the mass media has been widely criticised by the opponents of the MUI fatwa.

63 Those familiar with the dialectic works of theology (kalam) or divergent views of Islamic legal discourses (fiqh) will notice that these works were written by scholars in conversation with and/or against one another. Often they used harsh language in assessing or critiquing each others' views.

64 See Olle, ‘The Majelis Ulama Indonesia versus “heresy”’. There are several reports about Ahmadiyah and other ‘heretic sects’ being attacked by radical Muslims, which Olle connects to the MUI fatwas.